In Ynysddu, a village in the Sirhowy valley in south Wales, waste from companies was dumped in the former Ty Llwyd quarry on the mountain above the village in the 1960s and 70s.
Residents have warned for years that after heavy rainfall, foul-smelling brown and foamy liquid seeps from the quarry and downhill into the surrounding woods, council-owned land that was used by children and dogwalkers until it was recently fenced off.
In 2023, testing by Dr David Megson, an environmental chemist from Manchester Metropolitan University, found unsafe levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Ynysddu. PCBs are forever chemicals that accumulate in the food chain and can cause liver damage and increased cancer risk in humans.
All testing commissioned by Caerphilly county borough council to date has indicated zero level of PCBs, and the site is not legally defined as contaminated land.
Megson has suggested that the council may be using tests that are not sensitive enough, or testing in the wrong places. Caerphilly council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
So, if we use these new tests which go to parts per trillion then we can prove that there are trillionths of naughties and we should abolish capitalism!
The cponcept of “clean enough” never really does register, does it?
Something has to explain Welsh people’s behaviour…
Not even “The Science” ™ can explain that…
The cponcept [sic] of “clean enough” never really does register, does it?</i
It doesn't register because much environmentalism involves a pantheistic religious attitude. We have polluted and defiled the sacred Gaia, so we must repent of our sin and purify and appease Gaia.
“foul-smelling brown and foamy liquid seeps from the quarry and downhill into the surrounding woods, council-owned land”
The most important part of the whole tale. The old tip is owned by the council, who would be on the hook for tens of millions in costs to completely remove all the waste and then reinter it elsewhere more safely, all the while paying massive amounts of landfill tax. So children, guess whether the local authority is going to declare itself the proud owner of a massively contaminated toxic waste site that needs a fortune spent on it, or not?
If the owner of the site was a private individual the council would have nailed them to the wall over it years ago.
No linear threshold here we come…..
I’ve mentioned this before: During the re-development of the old Stratford Railway Works prior to the 2012 Olympics, some ‘radioactive’ waste was found. Cue the area evacuated, specialist emergency services deployed and the whole site shut down. Turned out it was an old Automatic Warning System (AWS)* ‘sunflower’ (they glow in the dark………).
The AWS gives an audible and visual indication to the train driver if a signal is at clear or caution/danger (it’s used for other things too).
“all the while paying massive amounts of landfill tax.”
And so we find this clever taxation, devised by clever, caring people, actively prevents us from cleaning up the environment. Trebles all round.
Can the people of Ynysddu teach their kids not to eat the dirt?
‘land that was used by children and dogwalkers’
Lopsided appeal to pity. They had me at ‘children,’ then lost me with ‘dogwalkers.’
Didn’t some old chap called Paracelsus have something to say about it?
O/T: the big screen in the office, permanently tuned to BBC News, is trumpeting the results of the Green’s leadership election – they might as well be announcing who was elected dogcatcher in Stallion’s Tackle, Arkansas for all the relevance it has.
Dr David Megson is easily found, including his academic output.
Nothing traceable to the Groan’s claim of him having found PCB’s in that specific area, but his research largely centers around it.
Research™, given that it’s always connected with Environment™.
It will be no surprise to anyone here he also seems to Academically™ contirbute to the canadian anti-fracking lobby, and is, of course, Collaborating™ with World Animal Protection…
No doubt he will have found PCB’s. He also no doubt would have looked really, really hard for them.
Certainly not anything to the tune of surpassing legal levels, given that that would have given the usual Busybodies enough ammo to actually do something..
Incidentally… It’s fun to do the same tests on the soil of a pine or rhododendron copse with modern equipment…. It’s where we got the whole idea of artificial PCB’s from… 😉
More interesting, according to Guido: 64,581 membership. That’s got to be even less than the tories. Even now.
https://order-order.com/2025/09/02/breaking-zack-polanski-wins-leadership-of-green-party/
@ Addolff
“They glow in the dark………”
Decades ago I joined an organised visit to Sizewell “A” nuclear power station. Before we were allowed in, there was a mandatory scan for radiation. A Geiger counter was waved about to show background levels which lead to some moderate “clicking” and a few worried faces. To break the ice the operator then held it up to his watch, whereupon the luminous numbers sent the counter crazy!
In another life I used to repair telephones. The “Trimphone” gained a certain notoriety for its illuminated dial. This was C/O a small glass tube filled with Tritium gas. For years, no thought was given to the safety aspect, until finally an edict was issued that all such devices had to be replaced with plain dials, and the “dangerous” versions sealed (with a cable tie) in a plastic bag. These were invariably thrown in a large cage to await collection…
JulieM: But Polanski is an out-and-out Trot, so his win will peel the lunatic fringe off the more mainstream parties, and an 84% win shows decicively the direction the Green Party (oE&W) is heading. Initially making the mainstream more palatably electable, but second order effects will probably be to make them less electable as the tenuous support they had from the fringe tendancy depart them and go Green.
Couple of years ago in Maine, they changed the accepted PFAS level to trillionths, and now none of the schools drinking fountains can be used.
First irony is that rainwater (literally captured out of the sky) has higher PFAS levels than the school drinking water.
Second irony is that most of Maines organic farmland is now contaminated with PFAS because for years (decades) the Maine EPA recommended using composted sludge from water treatment plants as organic fertilizer. That sludge is an excellent source of concentrated PFAS.
Rolls Royce minds…..
It’s a big joke.
https://junkscience.com/2023/03/no-marty-makary-there-is-no-evidence-pfas-in-the-environment-cause-any-harm-whatsoever/
My brother in law has a yacht and the compass is illuminated by a radium source embedded in a a fluorescent matrix ( made in 1930s ) – he keeps quiet about it so that ‘they’ don’t take it off him.
I calculate that it has already lost about a tenth of its luminosity in just 90 years.